NVG510 Bridge Mode???

NVG510 Bridge Mode???

Just switched from DSL (Motorola 2210) to UVerse (Motorola NVG510). I set the 2210 into bridge mode and ran my home network from an Apple Airport Extreme Base Station (AEBS). I have some complex configurations on my network and figured I'd be able to do the same thing with the NVG510. However, it seems the NVG510 uses different terminology than I am used to.

Under Firewall/IP Passthrough, I set:

Allocation Mode to 'Passthrough'

Passthrough Mode to 'DHCPS-Fixed'

Passthrough Fixed MAC Address to the AEBS' MAC address

And, I left the Lease at the default 10 minutes.

On the AEBS, under Internet/Internet Connection, I switched from 'PPPoE' to 'Ethernet'. I left the Ethernet WAN Port value at 'Automatic (Default)'. And Connection Sharing is set to 'Share a public IP address'.

This apparently is not enough, though. The AEBS reports that the "Wi-Fi base station does not have a valid IP address", and that there is a "Conflicting DHCP Range".

How do I turn off the DHCP on the NVG510? And, what are the correct settings to put the NVG510 into bridged mode?

Re: NVG510 Bridge Mode???

Amen--twice...I've spent the last four hours trying to get the NVG510 to play nice but it refuses. All my port forwarding and assigned DHCP numbers are in my AEBS and I'd like to keep it that way. How can it be so hard to make this thing a Bridge? I don't need the firewall or any of that other mess. I need the data stream, end of discussion.

If anyone has step by step instructions, I'm begging you to post them.

I called "tech support" and was told they'd be happy to tell me how to do that for $15 a month. Yes, a month. No, I'm not kidding. They put this in the category of "supporting 3rd party hardware". Every day I'm more apalled by how AT&T treats their customers. Well, when they're the only game in town, really, you're sort of their prisoner. And now that I think about it, that's how they treat me.

Re: NVG510 Bridge Mode???

Yes - and notice the wording of my specific questions:

How do I turn off DHCP on the NVG510?

How do I turn on Bridge Mode on the NVG510?

This has nothing to do with 3rd-party device support. I am NOT asking what to set on my AEBS, actually. I AM asking how to do these two things on the NVG510. I can worry about my own settings behind the NVG510 after that. I listed my AEBS settings for clarification, in case it might help. This question is NOT about 3rd-party device support.

Re: NVG510 Bridge Mode???

I suspect quite a few people are haing this problem, not just the three of us..

And yes, lisfolks, I agree--the questions are about THEIR router, not OUR equipment. It infuriates me, but what can you do? I'm picking the brain of every network person I can find to see if there is a solution out there. So far I've come up empty, but I promise to post anything I find out.

I tried using the router in the NVG510 this morning, but its garbage. You can only indicate the computer you want to port forward to if you use the presets. If you use a custom port (as I often do for things like SSH so they are not easily found), you cannot indicate the machine to forward the port to.

And yes, ktalley, my old DSL modem is looking good to me, too. If I can't sort this out and make it workable by Monday, it's going back to AT&T and they can cancel this Uverse account and put me back on DSL. At least it worked the way I needed it to.

Re: NVG510 Bridge Mode???

I use fixed IP addresses on some of my devices (via DHCP), but you can't do that with the NVG510. Also, I use both bands on my AEBS to avoid interference on the 2GHz band for those devices that can utilize the higher 5GHz band. The NVG510 can't do that, either. The AEBS also allows me to connect a printer and an external disk drive that I otherwise couldn't put on the network without dedicating a PC for sharing - of course, the NVG510 can't do that, either.

I would've stayed with the DSL, but my apartment complex has been wired for UVerse now. When I moved into another apartment in the same complex, AT&T said that I had been grandfathered to the DSL, but now HAD to switch to the UVerse internet in the new apartment. I WILL switch to the first alternative that comes 'round if AT&T stays on its current course. This is the first time a move has gone well for me with AT&T - but I did this one through AllConnect, rather than directly through AT&T.

In the meantime, yes, if I find some way to bridge this, I will be posting it! Crossing my fingers and moving forward....

Re: NVG510 Bridge Mode???

Well, just talked to Motorola's tech support. They said that neither the NVG510 nor the 2210 (with the 1ATT suffix on the model name) are bridgeable. They said those are the only two gateways they make that are not bridgeable, and it appears that is by AT&T's specification.

So, anybody know a good DSL alternative for AT&T? I can't do Charter in my complex. (Their customer service should be up and coming - T-Mobile's customer service managers decided to head over there to see what they can do. Started back in January, and have a couple of pilots going for proof-of-concept.)

Re: NVG510 Bridge Mode???

Well, it seems the tech support people lied not once but twice. First they insisted for two hours I could bridge the NVG510. Then they told me I could switch to the Motorola 2210 and bridge that. Glad I read this first before I dove into another wasted week of trying to get AT&T Uverse to work. I'm so tired of being treated like I'm a burden on these people--I'm paying for a service I'm not getting and they act like I'M the problem...

Re: NVG510 Bridge Mode???

I'm still hoping for a way to do it - at least for a little while longer. I'll post if I find anything. (That's just 'cause I'm stuck with them for the time being. Looking into Clear at this point, though I've seen bad reviews on their service - not as bad as AT&T, though, so far <grin>....)

Re: NVG510 Bridge Mode???

Okay, so here's what I've done that seems to be working at the moment...

- In the NVG510's setup, under Home Network, then Subnets & DHCP, I set the following:

Device IPv4 Address: an IP address that is within the same subnet as my AEBS

DHCPv4 Start Address and DHCPv4 End Address: the IP address I use for the AEBS.

(This means the NVG510 won't be trying to give out IP addresses to anything else, even though the DHCP is still on.)

- Under Home Network, then Wireless, I set Wireless Operation: Off.

- Everything else in the NVG510 is set to the defaults.

- On the AEBS, under Internet, then Internet Connection, I set the following:

Connect Using: Ethernet

Connection Sharing: Distribute a range of IP addresses

(On the AEBS, this turns off the NAT while leaving the DHCP active. I just left my IP address range at what I originally had in place.)

- Under Internet, then TCP/IP, I set Configure IPv4: Manually

then I entered the appropriate information matching the IP address I set in the NVG510's DHCPv4 Start and End Address fields.

- Then, I restarted both devices.

Now, the NVG510's device list is showing all of the devices on my network as 'static' (meaning they have manually set IP addresses). The only one that's actually static, of course, is the one I set for the AEBS. The rest are being provided BY the AEBS' DHCP.

This works for my needs for the time being. It allows me to use both my Wi-Fi bands, keep my existing IP structure, including fixed IPs provided by DHCP in the AEBS, and use the printer and disk I have connected to the AEBS as normal. And, the network speed doesn't seem to have been affected in any strange way so far.

We don't do any gaming or port forwarding - that will be for someone else to figure out, I guess. Hopefully, this'll help a few people out...

Re: NVG510 Bridge Mode???

Glad to see your up and running. Thanks for coming back and posting your solution.

What I can't figure out is why AT&T, when selling internet services only, does not ask if the customer has/uses a third party router and just send them a passive modem instead of a full blown router/access point. That would save a lot of headaches, for their customers and their tech support department.

__________________________________________________________How can you be in two places at once, when your not anywhere at all?------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------I really want to become a procrastinator, but I keep putting it off.------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------There are three kinds of people, those that can count, and those that can't.------------------------------------------------------------------------------------“Our great democracies still tend to think that a stupid man is more likely to be honest than a clever man, and our politicians take advantage of this prejudice by pretending to be even more stupid than nature has made them.

Re: NVG510 Bridge Mode???

In my case I had a 2210-02-1ATT from a previous U-Verse DSL account.

On my new activation, before hooking up the NVG510 I tried first hooking up the 2210, all lights went green, I was greeted by the activation screen then proceeded to activate my new account. The activation was successful.

I just set the DMZ on the Ethernet port of the 2210-02-1ATT . Then set publlic DNSes on my Asus router (4.2.2.1 for example).

Remote Desktop, IIS and FTP work great on my HTPC. So I assume the 2210 is letting all traffic flow to my Asus router.

I dont know if this will work for a current account.

But if you can get your hands on a used cheap 2210-02-ATT it might be worth a shot. In theory the lights should go green and at the most it should be a matter of activating using your current Member ID.

Based on all users comments across the web, looks like the NVG510 is just doodoo.

Re: NVG510 Bridge Mode???

I had some weird things happening the weekend after I set up my NVG510 as described above in the post starting:

"Okay, so here's what I've done that seems to be working at the moment...

- In the NVG510's setup, under Home Network, then Subnets & DHCP, I set the following:"

The Issue:

When family members were trying to access the Internet with multiple devices, things kept locking up. Say for example, the kids were trying to watch videos, one on an iPad, the other on an iPod Touch. The videos were buffering really slowly and kept locking up. So... back to the drawing board. Now, I have some interesting findings and a new setup.

The Research:

I researched IP-DSL and IP Passthrough a bit. It seems that IP-DSL, which U-verse is using, is actually using IP like a typical ethernet network. (Their prior DSL used ATM, which is a bit more complex technology.) The U-verse Residential Gateway (RG) is getting an IP address and gateway just like anything else you set up with IP and DHCP. The "Broadband IPv4 Address" on the Broadband Status tab is the public IP handed out to the RG. The "Gateway IPv4 Address" is the AT&T router managing the RG (typically called the "Default Gateway").

IP Passthrough is supposed to allow another device to receive the IP address of the RG. When IP Passthrough is turned on, then, the NVG510 is supposed to give its own public IP address to a specified LAN device. The instructions on the right-hand side of the IP Passthrough tab confirm this.

The Theoretical Setup

To set up the NVG510 correctly, then, for use with a home router (assuming you don't want to simply let your home router be a bridge, of course) -

Starting with the NVG510's default settings:

- Under Home Network, then Subnets & DHCP, I set the following:

Device IPv4 Address: <the IP address I want to use for the RG (the default is 192.168.1.254, which is okay too)>

DHCPv4 End Address: <the same IP address as the Start Address, above (since I'm not using the NVG510's DHCP)>

- Under Home Network, Wireless,

Wireless Operation: Off

- Under Firewall, IP Passthrough,

Allocation Mode: Passthrough

Passthrough Mode: DHCPS-fixed

Passthrough Fixed MAC Address: <MAC address of the home router>

On the AEBS, then:

- Under Internet, Internet Connection,

Connect Using: Ethernet

Connection Sharing: Share a Public IP Address

- Under Internet, TCP/IP,

Configure IPv4: DHCP

- Under Internet, DHCP, the DHCP values are set as normal, with an address range in a different subnet from the RG, though, in order to prevent double NAT messages. (For example, if the RG is 192.168.1.x, the AEBS is 192.168.2.x)

Restart the NVG510, then the AEBS.

Theoretically, the NVG510 should, using its own DHCP, give the AEBS its own public IP address (the "Broadband IPv4 Address"), a valid Subnet Mask, and the Default Gateway (Router) value equal to the "Gateway IPv4 Address".

In actuality, for some reason, the NVG510 only will give the AEBS its Gateway and DNS values. The AEBS gets an internal IP address and a Subnet Mask of 255.255.255.255. I suspect a bug, er, "feature", in the NVG510's firmware...

The Actual Setup

The fix, then, is to set everything up as described above - except... in the AEBS, I changed the last step:

- Under Internet, TCP/IP,

Configure IPv4: Manually

IP Address: <the RG's "Broadband IPv4 Address">

Subnet Mask: 255.255.0.0 (Note that I'm not certain this is correct. The NVG510 doesn't show a subnet mask on its Broadband/Status tab, but the values I have showing would work with this mask.)

Router: <the RG's "Gateway IPv4 Address">

DNS: <the RG's "local" IP address (e.g., 192.168.1.254 by default)>

Yay, It Works

No more lockups; everything is running smoothly with multiple devices accessing the Internet at the same time.

I'm going to mark this post as the answer, though hopefully I won't later get my hand slapped and told how I terribly messed things up - i.e., anybody trying anything I suggest in any post anywhere does so at their own risk, of course. I don't claim to be an expert - just yet another experimenter in the 'net world. Anybody with more expertise and good explanations is welcome to jump in!

Re: NVG510 Bridge Mode???

Thanks for all your hard work lisfolks. This last configuration setting worked for me.

There is one caveat though. Since I don't have a static IP address from AT&T, the RG's Broadband IP address is going to change at some point and the AEBS won't get that updated address automatically. I guess I'll find out what happens when that my current ip-address lease is up.